Today is the anniversary of Michelle’s departure from her body.  I’ve been experiencing the expansiveness of ‘Both/And’ quit a bit lately, even within this very tender topic.

In one hand, there’s Grief’s profoundly deep sadness.  My daughter died and it broke my heart. There’s no getting around that.

I discovered a while back that when my heart first broke open, Grief came in to fill that vast space with a salty ocean.   I discovered too that there’s a constant river gently flowing, from that oceanic heart space, into my life.  Sometimes, the river’s flow is barely audible and I’m not aware of it.  These past couple of weeks, the river’s been running a bit faster and stronger, and I’m aware.

Feeling all that I’m feeling, after 15 years, may not make sense to the random observer. There’s an idea in our culture that Grief had its way with me and left long ago.

But Grief is a trickster who doesn’t play within the usual boundaries of time. Grief, it seems, has never heard the saying time heals all. There seems to be no healing this loss. I feel the lack of Michelle on the planet, and after all this time, I feel it more, not less. 

Time does change my perspective, though.  And this is where the other side of the Both/And configuration comes in.

In one hand is Grief’s profound sadness. It’s there. It’s real. In the other hand, there’s a profound appreciation - for Michelle’s Spirit and what it’s doing. It’s a magnificent joy, alighting the heart space. I’m thrilled with her. And the two (seemingly opposing feelings) are happening simultaneously. I could not tell you if these tears are ‘happy’ or ‘sad’, because - they’re both.

After Michelle died, some form of her came to me, often. She first showed up in the airport, as I stood alone, waiting for plans to be made to fly me from Kauai back home to New England. She walked directly toward me, said “Mommy, I made a mistake”, I wrapped my arms around her, and she disappeared. Weeks later, she came through a medium who - embodying Michelle - could not stop crying because the remorse of leaving her son (then age 2) was too great to bear.

Months later, when Michelle was able to talk about him, she told me that my grandson “walks to the beat of a different drummer”. Every time we spoke, Michelle was “in a room” - not attached to the life she’d left behind, but learning from it. Three years later, she told me she was ready to “move on” and would consider my input. I thought long and hard about this, and came up with this request: “help pave his road - make it easier for him.” At some later point, I asked Michelle what she was doing, and she said “helping Transgender people feel supported”. I had no idea why that was her new chosen profession. That was 12-years ago.

Two weeks ago, my grandson told me he wants to change his gender. If you know anything about ‘them’, you’ll know how gender-fluid ‘they’ are, and (because ‘they’ are tall, big, loud, and hairy), how gender-bending this is going to be for the world around ‘them’.

When ‘Ash’ told me this news, I remembered Michelle saying “walks to the beat of a different drummer” and “helping Transgender people feel supported”. I realize that she has indeed been paving the road for her child. I realize she never really left us, and has been very much a part of our lives.

I realize that her Spirit form can do things Energetically that she would not have been able to do in her Physical Body. It’s remarkable, really. And I’m so impressed with and grateful for her.